A country’s education system has the potential to develop innovation skills in young people at an early age (“What a lasting recovery needs”, OECD Observer No 279, May 2010). Comments I’ve read on the topic seem to assume that business thinking starts after leaving school, say, with 16-18 year-olds.

You say that "in the UK, the Home Office estimates that ID fraud costs £1.7 billion (US$330 billion) to the UK economy, nearly 50% up on 2002." ("Online identity theft", in No 268, June 2008) If everyone is given a "place" on the net where people can be contacted, that also creates an opportunity for people to protect themselves. But this "place" must be made safe, and therefore must be seen by governments as part of their country's normal infrastructure. Integrity is the key word.

Your article on Islamic banking ("Islamic banking: an asset of promise?" No 272 April 2009) suggests that financial temperance is still possible. The ratio of assets leveraged against capital cited in the article, 20 to 1 in US banks, 30 to 1 in Europe, yet only 10 to 1 in Islamic banks reveals just how much the financial system has made greed systemic.

OECD faces a huge challenge of image. You insist that the organisation, known for its in-depth analyses and reliable statistics, aims to represent all relevant economies. Emerging countries, however, cultivate the impression that the OECD, despite its co-operation and development efforts well beyond its membership, is still the voice of "rich nations" only.

Scott McQuade writes about the prospects for digital devices as a replacement for paper publications ("Print online ?", OECD Observer No 270-271 January 2009). However, the evidence, so far, does not support the thesis that dedicated e-book readers such as Kindle, Sony Reader and iRex will become the platform of choice for book readers.

Bravo on the fisheries committee for its 100th meeting (No 264/265, December 2007-January 2008). The attention you bring to fishers is valuable, and your line against fish piracy commendable too. However, I sometimes wonder if your reform ideas, many of them good, don’t sometimes go a little too far.

Letter to the editor: Secretary-General Angel Gurría argues that “advancing on the issue of water will help us move forward on almost all the Millennium Development Goals” (editorial, No. 256, July 2006). We agree, and would like to draw your attention to the Working for Water programme (WfW) in South Africa.

Although I agree that men and women who are happily married can expect higher average incomes, I believe the idea of what a happy marriage consists of needs to be looked at more closely (“US: A Healthy Marriage” by Wade Horn, in Roundtable on social affairs, No. 248, March 2005). Yes, the US plan to push marriage and counselling seems to be a good one from the viewpoint of promoting a happy life, but looking at the bigger picture, isn’t that trying to promote a utopian world?

Is it really “Africa’s moment” (No 249, May 2005)? You mention conflict, but how can we help stop humanitarian disasters, like the one that seems inevitable in Darfur, where we cannot say we were not warned. Essentially, some 2 million people (mostly elderly, female or infants), currently “sheltered” in sometimes abysmal refugee camps, now risk being shoved onto what effectively will become death marches into Chad by the very people who created the problem in the first place.

The fact that the OECD’s 50^th anniversary should come in the midst of a global economic crisis is a coincidence, but it could prove to be a fortuitous one. After all, historical perspectives can help better understand the present and better prepare for the future. There are other major anniversaries of historical significance also being celebrated at this time which we should look at more closely, for there are lessons to be drawn. Germany, for instance, has just commemorated the 20^th anniversary of reunification. When the former West and East Germany came together shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, it marked the end of opposing the ideologies of “central planning versus markets”. More than that, reunification combined with dramatic shifts throughout the former eastern bloc and beyond, setting free hundreds of millions of people around the world.

One insight worth mentioning is that it is entirely rational for lenders (and insurance companies) to cut prices and underwriting standards to increase market share in good times. That is the way to make money. But it is important to understand the concept of insurable versus uninsurable risks. Credit default swaps to a significant extent, aim to protect investors from systemic risk. This is not an insurable risk. So swaps are really an abuse of strong balance sheets (or outright fraud if not backed by strong balance sheets). So I think it would be wise to simply outlaw them. It is hard enough to price risk first hand. Trying to price risk second or third hand is simply impossible. The failure of ratings agencies and the willingness to peddle trash as treasure conclusively prove that there are no fixes for transactions that simply can’t be priced by the parties involved.

GM crops are a threat to food security rather than a solution to the food crisis. Genetic engineering does not increase yields and GM crops have failed under extreme fluctuations in temperature. Rather than increasing critical biodiversity, genetic engineering puts the world’s natural biodiversity at risk of contamination in an unforeseeable and uncontrolled way. Since 1996, there have been 216 cases of crops being contaminated by GMOs in 57 countries        (http:// www.gmcontaminationregister.org). Genetic engineering is also expensive and risky for farmers. Its seeds are subject to patent claims which will indirectly increase the price of food and, as a result, will not alleviate poverty or hunger and pose a threat to food sovereignty.

I remember the story my mother used to tell about having to monitor the work of a male co-worker even though his salary far surpassed her own (Comment on “Does Wonderwoman earn as much as Superman?” by Tracey Strange, www.oecdinsights.org, 8 March 2010). She made many strides over the years, in spite of being a woman, and was the first person in her large corporation to have a personal computer at her desk. Even though she retired comfortably, her salary never compared to that of her male co-workers. In the twenty years or so since her retirement women have continued to make incredible strides in the workplace, finding more opportunities in a wider variety of jobs with greater access to the “big bucks.” No doubt things have improved, but it is imperative that organisations like the OECD and others continue to work for true equality in the workplace in all parts of the world. Wouldn’t it be nice if this were the only inequality for women?

As an OECD “veteran”, I was delighted to see that “human progress” is now on the OECD agenda (see www.oecd.org/progress). If you compare the OECD strategy to emerge from the oil-shock recessions of the 1970s (the McCracken Report) to the OECD Strategic Response to the Financial and Economic Crisis of today, you can see that in three decades the OECD has been transformed.

I've no doubt that there will be a role for (fewer) newspapers in the years ahead, and that paper will continue to remain viable for specialist print applications ("Print screen", by Larry Kilman, World Association of Newspapers, in No. 268, July 2008). However, it is inevitable that online access and digital devices will displace a lot of paper in the long run.

One of the main challenges for the future will undoubtedly be the migration of a highly skilled workforce from Asia (see for instance, “Globalisation and Labour Markets: Policy Issues Arising from the Emergence of China and India”, OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Paper No 63, November 2007, www.oecd.org/migration).

The world economy faces challenges from the new powerhouses of China and India (see Nos 263 and 264/265, 2007). In order to compete, there is a case for closer co-operation between developed countries and, in particular, tighter integration in Europe.

Well done on a clever choice of photo for “Africa: An emerging markets frontier” (No 263, October 2007). Africa is certainly in a better state than it was and, as you point out, all that new investment coming from around the globe is encouraging. The test is how long it will all last.

You rightly point out that “the supply of medical staff reflects global movements of labour” (No 262, Databank, July 2007). But many of us might disagree with your upbeat headline: “Healthy immigration”. In a report published in 2005, the Royal African Society argues that while recruitment of African medical professionals has shored up western health services, it has left the health sector in sending countries facing permanent crisis or even complete collapse.

Prof Vaclav Smil’s lucid and measured thinking is correct in that we must be realistic about renewable energy’s future (No 258/259, December 2006). But I wonder if he is not being too dismissive of solar energy.

The “pay-as-you-go” government pension system common to many countries, as you point out, will not be financially sustainable, the result of the rapid ageing of societies in developed countries (No 262, July 2007). As your graph shows, the only way to fund the pensions deficit will be through one or all of the following measures: a large tax increase, a substantial decrease in benefits or a significant raise in the retirement age.

As you point out, a key cause of the problems of the Doha trade round has been a lack of understanding among voters and opinion makers in the developed world on the importance of farm trade liberalisation (No 257, October 2006).

The figures you give for the dramatic fall in support for economic infrastructure and agriculture as part of total bilateral ODA between 1995/96 to 2002/2003 are sobering (No. 261, May 2007). There is increased emphasis on these two areas by development agencies, but it will be important to see if resource commitments actually follow–particularly for aid and investments in agriculture. But didn’t NEPAD members at Maputo commit to invest 10% of GDP in agriculture, not to increase investments by 10%?

Your energy focus covers the renewable question well (No. 258-259, December 2006). But what if the renewable promise became a broken one? It might, if mindsets don’t change. Thanks to technological advances and climate change fears, energy has pushed to the front stage again. Governments have been slower to move. Also, as Vaclav Smil’s article shows, the current energy system is based on high-energy density sources, like oil and coal, supplying nationwide energy grids (“21st century energy: Some sobering thoughts”).